


white on white

by postcardmystery



Category: Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Genre: Blood, F/F, F/M, M/M, Murder, Violence, War
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-10-16
Updated: 2012-10-16
Packaged: 2017-11-16 10:01:03
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,337
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/538268
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/postcardmystery/pseuds/postcardmystery
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Don’t misunderstand. It’s always been about the fire. He was never like Angel. He was never like Angelus. He’s always burned.</p>
            </blockquote>





	white on white

**Author's Note:**

> Trigger warnings for blood, violence, murder and war.

Angelus never did meet the real him. This much is true.

 

 

He was always the man on the edge, even if he didn’t know it, darkness lurking around the corners of his vision but never given leave to spread. (This is what decency looks like.) He is still a murderer. He is still defiance-riddled and clawing at every closed door with black-nailed hands. He is still a monster, even if he wears it well. He was always a poet. He was always full of war. Of course he was. Poetry’s not poetry until it’s gone through the fire, come out pure and hot and still black with smoke.

Don’t misunderstand. He’s not like Angel, wrapped in soul-chains, the memory of hell-fire licking at his feet. All of him seeking the scorching pain he can only half-remember, just because he thinks it’s what he deserves. (What they both deserve, but Angel thinks  _he_  deserves it more. Even in martyrdom, he’s jealous. There’s your secret. There’s your tell.)

Don’t misunderstand. It’s always been about the fire. He was never like Angel. He was never like Angelus. He’s always burned.

 

 

“ _Spike_ ,” says Angel, the way he always does, like a curse on his tongue, like mud on his boots that he can’t quite get clean. Angelus always said Spike’s name like a mocking evocation; it’s not much better. Angel and Angelus aren’t as different as they think they are, they both have an equal capacity for cruelty, even if one sort wears rags and the other silk. (And don’t they both feel the same, on affection-starved skin?)

“Keep your fuckin’ knickers on, mate,” says Spike, the way he has a thousand times before, because he’s got a thousand things to call the man, and not one of them is his name.

 

 

Killing a Slayer is hard, but that’s not why he does it. If he’s about the burn, then so are they, a spark he doesn’t recognise until he gets his soul back, until he shoves it down his screaming throat and keeps shoving. It feels like it never ends, hands over his mouth holding it in. It’s his and he knows it, but it left a trail of scars. It left a lot of things. It might be his, but it doesn’t feel that way. Trust him. Now all he does is feel.

He didn’t kill Slayers because it was hard, or because nothing’s ever made his fangs slide out faster. (Nah, that’s not really a metaphor.) He didn’t kill Slayers for the prestige, because the first time, he didn’t get any, except from his Dru. (And anyway, it wasn’t the  _Slayer’s_  fear she smelt.) He didn’t kill Slayers for the slick slipside of superiority in his veins, that was always Angelus’s shtick. He didn’t kill them to nick their coats, or hock their jewels, or laugh at their last words. He didn’t even kill them just because he could. (Can.)

Don’t get him wrong. He killed Slayers because killing Slayers was  _fun_. It’s possible he’s not so new to this ‘feelings’ thing after all.

 

 

“The kitty-cat whispers to me in the language of the dirt,” says Drusilla, throwing back her head, her tongue laughterdrunk.

It is 1997, and Spike’s at the wheel of a stolen black BMW convertible, the radio on and black liner thick around eyes that only look at Dru.

“Does the kitty-kat happen to know where we pissin’ are?” says Spike, because, as it turns out, this state is a lot bigger than he thought it was.

“The king of spades asks you kindly to chart the ocean from the left,” says Drusilla, her long hair flowing behind her in the wind. Her fingernails leave trails in the paintwork as Spike presses his foot on the accelerator, says, “We’re five hundred miles from the ocean, pet.”

“I can hear all the little fishies,” says Drusilla, stretching our her arms, smiling, “they sing such melancholy songs.”

“If that’s what makes you happy, love,” says Spike, fingers tapping on the wheel to the drum beat of the song coming on the radio, “how about we stop for a bite to eat, eh?”

“The king approves, yes, yes, yes, he does,” says Drusilla, and Spike leans over to kiss her, turns the radio up, sings along, as, above them, shine all the stars.

_California Uber Alles, Slayer._

 

 

He doesn’t write poetry because he lives it; Dru’s arms above her head in Berlin in 1992, swaying to electrotrash with fresh blood on her lips, Angelus’s fierce victory snarl in 1882 when he tears a priest’s throat out during High Mass, Darla’s intoxicating laughter as she rides through killing fields in China in 1898, a sword on her belt and her hair loose and caked in black and brown and red. Berlin in 1944, when the bombs rained down, wearing scarlet in the Boer War with sand smeared across his face, climbing the Berlin Wall just to make Dru smile, stealing a tank in Kosovo because a whole garrison is a challenge, and he likes nothing better than a challenge, driving into Sunnydale with a California sunset at his back, the Dropkick Murphys on and Dru leaving long slits in his arm with those nails of hers.

Then, he gets his soul back. He starts to write again. He never shows them to anyone. (Once, Angel asked.)

 

 

“I’m gonna whip that sneer off yer face, boy,” says Angelus, his accent thick with rage, Darla with a calming hand on his arm. (It’s Darla, so it’s all for show.)

It is 1889, and Vienna, it turns out, remembers the vampire scourge and his whore.

(“I’m not a whore anymore,” Darla had said, with great vehemence, “honestly, you bed a few pox-ridden puritans and they never let you forget it!”)

“Gimme all you can muster, old man,” says Spike, the accent he’s taken and wrapped around him like armour still new on his tongue. There’s a filthy cravat at his neck and his hair’s darkened black. He’s learned how to walk like power, like the world’s at his feet and he knows he owns it. He’s learnt to fuck the fury out of Angelus’s eyes, although it lasts a few hours at best. (His ribs are always bruised, after. The bastard does it on purpose, of course.) He’s learnt to dance around Darla, oh-so-careful, kissing her when told, kneeling between her legs with Angelus’s hand on the back of his neck, rings pressing in. He’s learnt to give Dru whatever she wants, whenever she wants it. He’s learnt how to frighten, and how to never look afraid. He’s learnt to love, or something like it. He’s learnt to be unmade.

“Them was my nuns, Willy,” says Angelus, his lips pulling back from his teeth, and Spike tears his sneer wider, bares his teeth, waits for the punch he knows is seconds away.

 

 

Here’s a question for you: what’s Angel’s name when he doesn’t have a soul?

Here’s a better one for you: what’s Spike’s?

 

 

The Watchers called him William the Bloody, Angelus called him ‘boy’ and ‘Willy’ and ‘yer’ll be the one whose arse I’ll be beatin’ later.’ Drusilla called him ‘my darling boy’ and Darla, when she was feeling like a little bloodplay, called him ‘Dru’s whore.’ (As if he found any shame in that.) Now Angel calls him ‘that peroxide asshole’ and Spike calls him ‘you flash bastard’, often in the same breath. (That neither of them need to be taking.) Once, Buffy called him William, but it’s not his name, it never was. His name is Spike, because Spike is the one he’s always been.

Angelus never met the real him. This much is true. Now Angel passes him a sword with a gentle scowl on his face, standing close enough for his scent to be all Spike can smell - doing it on purpose, once a wanker always a wanker - and Spike takes the sword, knows that just because you wish something was true, it doesn’t mean it is.


End file.
